Portal:Netherlands
Welcome to the Netherlands Portal
Welkom bij het Nederlandportaal!
The Netherlands, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands consists of twelve provinces; it borders Germany to the east and Belgium to the south, with a North Sea coastline to the north and west. It shares maritime borders with the United Kingdom, Germany, and Belgium. The official language is Dutch, with West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland. Dutch, English, and Papiamento are official in the Caribbean territories.
The Netherlands has been a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a unitary structure since 1848. The country has a tradition of pillarisation (separation of citizens into groups by religion and political beliefs) and a long record of social tolerance, having legalised prostitution and euthanasia, along with maintaining a liberal drug policy. The Netherlands allowed women's suffrage in 1919 and was the first country to legalise same-sex marriage in 2001. Its mixed-market advanced economy has the eleventh-highest per capita income globally. The Hague holds the seat of the States General, Cabinet, and Supreme Court. The Port of Rotterdam is the busiest in Europe. Schiphol is the busiest airport in the Netherlands, and the fourth busiest in Europe. Being a developed country, the Netherlands is a founding member of the European Union, Eurozone, G10, NATO, OECD, and WTO, as well as a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. It hosts intergovernmental organisations and international courts, many of which are in The Hague. (Full article...)
Selected picture
The city centre of Rotterdam was almost completely flattened in the 1940 Rotterdam Blitz. This World War II aerial bombardment was part of the Battle of the Netherlands wherein Nazi German forces invaded the Low Countries. The Netherlands surrendered after four days to avoid further bombings. Picture taken after debris was cleared.
Selected biography
Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that during the 1960s and 1970s, American artist Robert Bauer painted figures that were a mixture of 20th-century avant-garde funk and 17th-century Dutch realism?
- ... that the Argentina and Netherlands national football teams have played each other at every other FIFA World Cup since 1998?
- ... that the first recording of Bach's Kreuzstab cantata was a 1939 Dutch live broadcast sung by Mack Harrell, 25 years before the 1964 German recording by his protégé Barry McDaniel?
- ... that Femke is the most common feminine given name of West Frisian origin in the Netherlands?
- ... that Museum Arnhem in the Netherlands celebrated its 100th anniversary with a giant cat picture?
- ... that the Jewish cemetery in the Dutch city of Hoorn was cleared in 1968 to make room for a roadway, and the bodily remains and gravestones were moved to the public cemetery?
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You are invited to participate in the WikiProject Netherlands, a WikiProject dedicated to developing and improving articles about the Netherlands. |